Maxwell's Igloo

 

What we did this afternoon!!

I have a few different pairs of headphones including a pair of fake Audio Technica ESW9s that I have made real by replacing every component myself with parts sourced directly from AT. But which is my favorite pair? Hmmm... a tough question.

I really like the Sennheiser PX100. The original one - not the new one. I spent around $35 on them years ago and with a recent set of replacement pads, they are as good as new. No - better than new since they have about 5 years of burn in on them!

The px100 folds up, comes with a hard carrying case, a reasonable length - noise free cord, a really well balanced Sennheiser sound.

I'm in the market for a new pair of headphones and what I've realized is that I would like a pair that just improves upon the px100. The obvious choices are the HD600 and the HD650 but I'm also interested in the HD700. I'm not naive enough to think that maybe a pair of ultrasones might be able to evoke the same response in me - so I'm reaching out to some other brands too.

Keeping in the same vein as the last post, an incredibly important piece of audio gear is, perhaps suprisingly, the seat you sit in!

At home, I sit in an aeron chair. (scored it used on craiglist a few years ago) My chair is a little busted, the recline doesn't really work, but it is still a fairly comfortable place to sit and listen to music. This really works for me because my music is mostly replayed through my computer.

However, up at my wife's house, I run my portable rig - a rockbox'd ipod 5.5 through an alo audio Au/Ag cable to my meier corda 3move amp. Then I usually use my rebuilt AT esw9s or sometimes my sennheiser ie7s or the JVC HA S500. Although the sound isn't quite as great from the portable rig it still is way better than any stock ipod combo and it gives me the flexibility to sit in this:

 

This thing reclines all the way back, so that you end up in a lying down position. One night, I passed out listening to music because it was just too damn comfortable!

There is no way I'll end up with one of these in my apartment, they take up a lot of space and frankly I don't have the money lying around to buy a fancy lounge chair. However, a great alternative is the ikea Poang chair, especially if you get the leather cushions. I often chill in mine and have occasionally fallen asleep in it - a testament to its comfort. 

I'm currently looking into headless computer systems or multimedia centers, that I could use to store and play back music, without being limited by a screen and distracted by the possibilities of a web browser. It wouldn't make sense to set that up in my living room, but maybe down the road, a dedicated listening chair could be in order!

Remember CDs?

I have a pretty nice setup for playing back music at my computer - Foobar + FLAC > optical out > emotiva xda-1 > gilmore lite > akg k601... It's not a super fancy audiophile setup but they are all good components and provided with good source material, it sounds really great. I was just listening to Phish's 46 Days, off of Round Room, and I wasn't impressed with how it sounded, too grainy... There is a bit of grit in the recording, but the source material I have makes it sound a litle noisy as opposed to gritty. Then I remembered, I own that CD, why don't I put it in?

I happen to own an OPPO 970HD which is Oppo's second player they ever built, back before blu-ray had taken over from HD Video. I use my 970HD as a cd player in my system - it also outputs via optical cable to the XDA-1 second optical input, then through the same signal chain. (By the way I use emotiva cables throughout my system, good quality and not too expensive...) Man, it sounds amazing!! The clarity is improved, as is the spaciousness of the music. The Oppo has a good DAC, but when you use it as a pure digital output and farm out the digital to analog conversion to an external component, the player really shines. You can read more about using this old dvd player as a cd transport here... Anyways, I'm going back to just listening - no typing or browsing - just listening!